


Corvette Winter (Fast Car)

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bad Weather, Choices, Crappy Jobs, Dropping Out, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Fast Car - Tracy Chapman, Fluff, Fluff & Angst, Love, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug, One Shot, Opportunities, Parental Abuse, Reader-Insert, Relationship(s), Romance, Teenagers, not a songfic, small town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: You and Luke have lived in the same small, dreary town for as long as you can both remember. You're a bag-girl at the local grocery store carving out a path to nowhere, and he's an aspiring mechanic who's dropped out of high school to take care of his mean-spirited, alcoholic father.Fed up with his lot in life, Luke comes to you one day after work with an offer you only have one chance to take.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker/Reader
Comments: 11
Kudos: 42





	Corvette Winter (Fast Car)

The cold weather started in October, just the way it usually did. You knew it was coming (you always knew), but no matter how much you ought to have expected it, the chill in the air always felt sudden. One day, the leaves on the trees would just be starting to turn; the next, it seemed, there would be frost. Snow and ice and biting wind would follow in short time, and it would stay like that for months.

That was just the way things were.

You eyed the parking lot outside the window of the grocery store. Your view was partially obscured by posters for sales, and ostentatiously large numbers denoting 'great' prices painted thickly in tempera. You were not-so-hard at work right now, bagging groceries. Putting things into bags was your job— you did it every day. There was always a rush of customers before the end of your shift, and you were tired; couldn't wait to leave.

 _"Come on,"_ you whispered to yourself, during a brief lull. You were waiting anxiously for Luke to pull into the grey, snow-dusted expanse outside. He always offered to drive you home from work if he could, and you just about always let him do it. The time you got to spend together in his car was nice; anyway, he didn't especially like for you to walk around after dark, in temperatures that hovered close to freezing. That was just the way _he_ was.

Usually he showed up a few minutes before your shift was set to end, but today he seemed to be running a little bit late. That was just fine; you'd walk if you had to, but when Luke was late or didn't show up at all, it typically meant that something had gone wrong for him at home. That made you worry; Luke had enough on his plate without the added stress of arguing with his dad, or having to fix things in the shabby little bungalow they happened to share together.

By the time you'd gone into the staff break room to retrieve your backpack and put away your uniform, you still hadn't seen a trace of him, or his cherry-red, early 1970's Chevrolet. Luke loved his car; if he took pride in anything at all these days, it was the way he'd transformed it from a pathetic hunk of junk into the fast, reliable little machine he'd always wanted to have. He'd done it single-handedly, and with almost no money within the span of a couple of short years. 

"Where's your boyfriend?" asked the girl who'd been working next to you at the cash register, as she walked into the room behind you. "I didn't see him in the parking lot. You don't want to walk home tonight, it's miserable out there." She wasn't wrong— the snow had started to pick up by the time you'd left your post, and you had no reason to believe it would be slowing down any time soon. 

"I dunno," you said, zipping up your well-worn windbreaker so that the collar rested just beneath your chin. "He'll show up soon; if he doesn't, I might drop some money on a cab." You couldn't afford a taxi, really, but the buses in your small town were notoriously unreliable and infrequent. Besides your own two feet, a cab was your only recourse if it turned out Luke was otherwise occupied.

"That kid's dad is a piece of work, isn't he?" she asked next. "He's always been a jackass, but it's been worse since his wife died. He came in here the other day just _hammered_ drunk— tried to buy a carton of some brand of smokes I've never even heard of, and when I told him we didn't carry them, he flipped his shit on me. Almost had to call the cops to get him out."

Luke's dad might not have been your responsibility, but you felt vicariously embarrassed by his conduct anyhow. He was always causing problems; some days he'd tear through the town like a bull on a rampage, hurling abuse and spewing vitriol at whoever would put up with him. Luke had even gone so far as to drop out of school to work because the old bastard couldn't hold a job for more than a few weeks at a time anymore. You didn't much like that, but it wasn't up to you; besides, since his mom had died, there wasn't anything else Luke could do if he wanted to keep living in that crummy house he was always having to fix. 

Your own situation wasn't much better, of course. Your mom wasn't as bad as Luke's dad by any means, but you were still stuck in her house, working toward what often felt like nothing. You'd managed to graduate high school a few months back, but besides that and your job as a bag-girl, you didn't have much in the way of prospects. No one here did, though, and for as hopeless as you sometimes felt, you at least knew you weren't alone. Your little town was firmly situated at the very end of a road to absolutely nowhere— you knew it, Luke knew it, and so did everyone else. 

"You know Luke's nothing like his dad, right?" you asked, because you didn't have much of anything to say about what she'd told you. None of it surprised you; you knew what he was like, because you'd seen him in action first-hand. He treated everyone like crap, including Luke, whether he realized he was doing it or not (he was drunk so often you couldn't always tell).

"I know he's not," she said, waving her hand at you dismissively. "I've never had to tell your boyfriend to get the hell out of the store because he wouldn't shut the fuck up. Besides, I know you; you wouldn't put up with him if he was anything like his old man."

That made you smile, at least. "You're right," you said. "I guess I'll give him a few minutes to show up, but if he doesn't, I'm probably going to come back in to use the phone, okay?"

"Sounds good to me— I hope he makes it." She sat down, then, at the little folding table in the middle of the room with her dinner. You'd have asked her for a ride, but she wasn't going to be leaving for another couple of hours.

"I hope so too," you told her, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you headed out the door, and back through the store. 

Maybe, you thought, he'd be there by the time you got outside.

...

The wind, as it turned out, was exactly as harsh and cold as you'd anticipated. It hadn't stopped snowing, and as the parking lot began to empty following the store's afternoon rush, you started to think that Luke might not be showing up after all. You wanted to wait for him, but since there was no way of knowing whether he was coming or not, you started to make your way back into the store. It was already getting dark.

Before you got back to the front doors, though, you heard the very distinct sound of an engine; an engine you'd have known anywhere— along with a voice whose timbre you knew even better.

 _"Hey!"_ called Luke through his open window as he approached the curb, squinting against the wind blowing into the car. "Get in here— it's freezing!"

With a grateful smile, you ran around to the passenger's side door and did exactly as he'd asked. Not only was he right about the temperature; you'd missed him since you'd last seen him the day before. Aside from worrying about Luke, you always missed him, too.

"Hey," you started, leaning over to offer him a quick kiss. "Where have you—" Getting a good look at his face stopped you mid-sentence. "Oh no, Luke— not _again._ I thought he—"

"He lost that job," Luke interrupted, because he already knew exactly what you meant. "He's been home all day; we got into another argument. I was sort of hoping you wouldn't notice—"

"You look like you've been in a boxing match!" you exclaimed, cutting him off in return. You wanted to say more, but you weren't sure what. Luke's eye was dark, and his lip was swollen. You could tell that his nose had been bleeding, but he appeared to have wiped that away. It was nothing you hadn't seen before, but every time you did, it enraged you. This was precisely why you'd been worried about him in the first place.

"It's okay," he said. _"I'm_ okay. It was pretty much just a misunderstanding."

"What did he 'misunderstand' _this_ time?" you asked, pushing Luke's hair gingerly away from his face with your hand so you could lean in to get a better look at what his dad had done to him. The old man only had one arm, but he apparently knew how to use it to great effect. Besides that, Luke never fought back— he loved his dad; didn't want to hurt him. _You_ certainly wouldn't have minded hurting him, of course, but that wasn't up to you any more than Luke's decision to leave school had been up to you. 

You couldn't govern what happened between him and his dad any more than you could stop the snow from falling, or the wind from blowing.

"He thought I hid his stupid bottle," he told you, shaking his head. It was nice to be inside of the idling car; Luke hadn't skimped on the heating system when he'd fixed it up— he knew what the winters here were like, and he'd clearly taken that into consideration. His foresight was another one of things you loved about him, besides his reliability and overall kind disposition. He really was nothing like his father, you couldn't help but reflect.

"You _didn't_ hide it, did you?" you asked tentatively. Luke was always trying to rescue his dad from himself, and you wouldn't have put it past him to try to put his liquor out of his reach.

"No!" he protested, looking annoyed for a brief moment. "I'm not an idiot. He forgot where he put it, and then he blamed me— I ended up helping him find it so he'd calm down."

"You've gotta start defending yourself when he gets like that," you said. "He's never going to—"

"I won't hurt him that way," Luke told you decidedly. "I don't want to do something I'll regret; anyway, I'm better than he is— at least for now. I don't need to start acting like he does." You knew Luke had a lot of anxiety about ending up like his father, if he wasn't careful. As far as you were concerned he could never be as much of a sheer asshole as his dad; however, Luke often didn't seem as certain about that as you were. You hated the way it kept him up at night; hated that it was seemingly always on his mind.

"Then what are you going to do? He's not going to change, and you can't keep on living like this. He's going to kill you one day— don't you realize how much it'd hurt me if that happened?" You didn't like using the way you and Luke felt about one another to try and manipulate his behaviour, but in this instance it almost seemed warranted. What _was_ he going to do? Something, you were quickly beginning to realize, had to change; it had to change soon, or you had a sinking feeling you'd lose Luke altogether. You couldn't stand the thought of that.

"Yeah," he sighed. "I do realize that." He turned to look out the front windshield then, away from you and out at the icy grey and white of the parking lot, and the road too. The snow still hasn't slowed; everything was turning white, including the sleeping trees dotting the sparse landscape around the store. You didn't want Luke to start driving yet (you wanted to keep talking with him, not go home to your mom), but you knew that if he didn't pull out soon, it would get harder for him to control his little sports car on the shabby road. 

"So what are you—"

"I kind of wanted to talk to you about that," he blurted out, altogether too quickly. He chewed on his swollen lip as he looked down at the floor of the car, having suddenly taken on a much more nervous demeanour than what you were used to. Luke was sweet and long-suffering, but he was rarely ever anxious. Only his dad could make him feel that way— just another reason for you not to like the old bastard.

"What do you mean?" you asked, more gently than you'd said anything else so far. Your anger toward Luke's father was beginning to ebb off in favour of curiosity about what about what it was he had to say.

"I got an interview," he told you, still without looking in your direction. "A job interview."

"That's fantastic!" It really was— right now, Luke worked on a farm situated at the edge of town. He scooped up cow shit, harvested fruit, and cleaned barns, and he hated every second of it.

"It is and it isn't," he said. "There's an opening for a mechanic's job at a shop; I was talking to the owner's brother about what I've been doing with my car. He said it sounded like I had... I don't know, a 'natural aptitude', I guess. He told me to come by with it, and that maybe—"

"Do it!" you interrupted, because you were excited for him. Luke's passion had always been cars; he loved fixing things, and working with his hands. If there was an auto-shop that would overlook both his lack of a high school diploma and professional experience, you knew he'd work twice as hard to prove himself. "Give it a try! I'll be there for you every step of the way; if you show them what you can do, they'll hire you in a second!"

"There's just... well, there's one thing about it," he said. "It's— well, it's— um..."

"What? What is it?" You grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. "You can't throw away an opportunity like this; I won't let you." You wouldn't: A job like this could be Luke's ticket out of his dad's house. You imagined him renting a little apartment in town; imagined getting to visit him there without worrying about his dad, or about whether or not the heat in their house felt like working that day. 

"...The job is in the city," he finally confessed, glancing over at you as though he were scared of the way you might react to that additional bit of information. He also, however, squeezed your hand in return.

"The city?" you asked. "You mean _the_ city?" Your little town just so happened to be incredibly remote. The nearest actual city— the one you presumed Luke meant— was nearly five hundred miles to the west. It took hours to drive there; enough of them that there was no way he'd be commuting, if he got the job... which, of course, you were already fairly certain he would.

"Yeah," he confirmed for you. _"The_ city."

You fell silent, although you didn't let go of his hand. Of all the things you thought he'd go ahead and tell you, the fact that he might be leaving for good was the last of them. How would the two of you see each other anymore? You didn't drive, and you were always working. The thought of losing him tied your stomach up in a knot, even if what he was leaving for was better than anything he could ever have found here. You loved Luke, and he loved you too— but you weren't naive enough to think your connection could withstand the distance you thought he'd just proposed putting between you.

"I don't know what to say," you admitted, your excitement having been replaced by an overwhelming sense of doubt. Now you were anxious too, and it was beyond your ability to try and hide it. The last thing you wanted was to discourage him, but you also didn't want to him to leave. Nobody ever left this town; you'd (foolishly) never so much as fathomed that he might.

"Well," he ventured carefully, "I was... um, I was kind of hoping you'd say that you... well, that you would _maybe_ want to come with me."

"...What?"

"Come with me," he reiterated, finally shifting in his seat to face you. He didn't let go of you; in fact, he reached out with his free hand to touch your leg in addition to squeezing your fingers. "There'll be jobs there for you, too; better jobs than this one," he said, motioning back toward the grocery store with his head. "Even if you can't find one right away, mine'll still be enough— we can find a place to live together; maybe even buy a house." He paused to look down again. "...Anyway," he added, "I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you."

"You'd be fine without me," you said, lifting your own spare hand to tilt his chin up so that he could see you. It was times such as this that you hated to acknowledge it, but Luke could do anything he set his mind to— whether he had you by his side or not. Really, you should have known this day would come. "It's _me_ who doesn't know what I'm going to do without _you."_

"So come with me," he said yet again, this time sounding a bit more sure of himself. "Come with me, and that way we don't have to leave each other at all."

You sighed, studying the bruises on his face. "I don't know, Luke..." You didn't like it here any more than he did, but it was all you'd ever known. You were quite sure your own mother would never give you her blessing if you were to tell her you wanted to leave; besides that, your job at the grocery store was the only one you'd ever had. The prospect of finding a new one in an enormous city seemed daunting. If the two of you left together, you would be entirely alone: No one would help you, because everyone who knew you would be too far away. "What about your dad?" you asked, even though you shouldn't have.

"There's nothing I can do for him anymore," Luke said, which was probably true, although you were shocked to hear him admit it. "I give him everything I make, and he just drinks it away; when I fix the house, it always breaks down again. We argue, and then he hits me, and then we both pretend like it never happened until it happens again. It's been that way since my mom died; even my sister left after that, because she just couldn't stand him." 

"You said you weren't going to give up on him," you pointed out, even if you had always thought giving up on him might be for the best. You hadn't said so when it had happened for fear of Luke following suit, but really, you'd always thought his sister had made the correct choice in moving away.

 _"I'm not,"_ he told you emphatically. "I'm not giving up on him. But I also can't help him as long as we're just going in circles. One day I'm gonna lose it and hit him back, and then what? Either we'll kill each other, or he'll just kick me out anyway." 

He was right; you'd known he was right before you'd even asked about his dad. The condition of his face ought to have told you everything you needed to know, but you were scared— scared to leave, and scared to stay here without Luke, too. He was your anchor; he'd been your anchor since you'd first fallen for him. "My mom—" you started, but Luke cut you off.

"Your mom will be okay," he said. "We both know she's a lot better off than my dad. Anyway, she might not understand it at first, but don't you think she'll be proud of you once you call her up and tell her we made it?"

You laughed, if only because you could hardly imagine making that particular phone call. "Maybe, but—"

 _"Please?"_ implored Luke. He was obviously still frightened, but now he was also pleading. It wasn't like him, really... but then again, maybe it was.

You expected him to say something else after 'please', but he didn't, and so you fell silent, too. You took a minute to look at his face again; at the bruises, and at the blood. He deserved better than this, you thought— so much better. He deserved to fix cars if that was what he wanted to do; deserved not to get punched in the face by someone who was supposed to care about him. He deserved a house that wasn't always in need of repairs he couldn't afford, and a job that wasn't all about scooping up cow shit. You'd thought before about marrying him; having babies with him— babies with his hair and your eyes, or maybe the other way around. Luke deserved that, too.

He deserved all the love you could give him, and then some.

"Luke," you started, but you didn't get a chance to finish.

"The interview is tomorrow," he said, with more than a bit of desperation. 

_"Tomorrow?"_ That must have meant he was planning on leaving tonight. If he dropped you off at home and left, there was a chance you wouldn't see him again for a long time... if ever. You glanced behind yourself at the back seat, and noticed an overstuffed backpack, a small suitcase, and his toolbox. The tools were always there, but the bags certainly weren't. 

"I should have told you sooner," he admitted, "but I had to make sure my dad didn't find out. If he knew I was running off, he'd—"

"I know," you said, because you did. He didn't have to tell you what his father was liable to do to him if he was made aware of Luke's plan. 

"I figured you could go home, grab some things, and—"

"And just _leave?"_

He looked out the window again; out at the snow— at nothing. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're right, I should have—"

"Okay," you interrupted, before he could say anything else. "I'll come with you." The urgency of the situation seemed to hit you in the face just then, not unlike the biting wind had when you'd first stepped out of the store— not unlike Luke's dad's fist had hit him earlier in the day. You didn't have anything to lose by going with him, and he had everything to lose if he stayed behind to please you. (Even coming back to get you later could be dangerous for him, depending on the way his dad took his absence.) The only thing you were afraid of not having, really, was _him._

You needed Luke as much as Luke needed to leave.

When he turned his head back to look at you, he appeared as if he almost didn't believe what you'd just said. "You mean that?" he asked, the very beginning of a smile spreading across his swollen mouth.

"I mean it. Anything else we need to talk about, we can talk about it when we get there. I'm coming with you. Do you know how much I love you, Luke?"

He was grinning by now— grinning, and turning to sit forward in the driver's seat so that he could put his car into gear. "You won't regret this," he said, followed by, "I love you too— I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. _I promise you won't regret this."_

"I already know I won't," you told him. "I trust you. I've _always_ trusted you." 

By then, you found yourself reaching back for your seatbelt and clicking it into place, because Luke had already begun to pull out of the parking lot so that the two of you could make a (brief) stop at your house prior to setting off together. Your mom would be asleep; she always went to bed early— it was likely she wouldn't even notice you missing until a couple of days had already passed. The snow was whipping around with heartless abandon, but the car didn't seem to mind, such was the work Luke had put into it over the years. You were glad, now, that he'd been so persistent; glad he hadn't given up on it, in spite of everything.

His little red car was his ticket out of this place— your ticket, too, now that you'd opted not to leave his side.

Guilt nipped at your heels when you dashed into your house to pack a bag and leave a note for your mom, but it wasn't enough to stop you; if she had it her way, you'd _never_ leave. Anyway, Luke may even have been right: In time, she might come to understand why you'd disappeared so suddenly. It wasn't as if you could never come back; however, you certainly weren't going to be visiting any time soon.

Ready to go, you exited through the front door, closing it very quietly behind yourself. As you walked down the driveway, you were too busy peering into the car at Luke to look back. Your steps quickened as you began to feel the cold more acutely, and you realized you ought to have asked Luke where he planned on staying until his interview— indeed, until he first got paid. By the time you'd tossed your bag into the back seat along with his and slid back into the front passenger's seat, though, you'd already realized it didn't matter. Together, you had enough money to pay for a hotel for at least a few days; if Luke got the job, then you could plan for the time beyond that.

The knowledge that you were about to start being able to go to sleep next to him at night and wake up with him in the morning was exciting; exciting enough to put a grin on your face.

He looked at you apologetically anyhow before putting the car back into gear, which made you feel afraid that he might be about to tell you to go back inside; let him go by himself, and come back for you later.

That, however, wasn't what you wanted.

"I'm not going to make you feel like you need to stay stranded here," you said, "but I'm also not going to let you leave by yourself." 

Without giving him so much as a chance to say anything in response, you leaned over and offered him a kiss. You were slow and gentle, because you didn't want to hurt his face any more than it had already been hurt. Luke didn't need any more pain, particularly not today. 

Pain didn't seem to matter to him right now, though; he communicated as much to you by taking the back of your head in his hand and pressing his lips firmly onto yours. He might have been able to ignore his wounds in favour of showing you affection, but you couldn't— not when you could taste his blood and feel the chips in his teeth with your tongue. It didn't repel you, though; quite the opposite. Instead, it emboldened you, and told you that you were making the right choice. No, you thought, you weren't about to abandon him; here, or in the vastness of the city toward which you were about to be headed.

"I guess that means you're ready to go, then," he laughed, when you finally found it in yourselves to pull away.

"I'm ready for anything," you assured him, "as long as it's with you." You couldn't ever remember meaning anything more than you meant that. 

With a smile to match your own, he shifted the car into first gear to give himself more traction against the ice and snow, and sent that little red car of his shooting down the road toward the city— toward what you both hoped would be a better life. 

Somewhere along the way, his pager would go off; the number scrolling across the tiny screen would tell him it was his dad. More likely than not, the old man wanted to know where the hell he'd gone; perhaps because something in the house had broken yet again, or maybe even just because he'd gone and misplaced his liquor. For the first time in a long time, though, it didn't matter— not even a little bit.

Without looking away from the road ahead, Luke pulled the little device from his belt, switched it off, and tossed it into the back seat with a level of nonchalance in which you couldn't help but take pride. He loved his dad, but he knew he couldn't stay tethered to him forever; it just wasn't sustainable... especially given the way he was treated at home.

You knew he was making the right decision tonight, and you couldn't have been more grateful that he was brave enough to be making it with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Accuradio played 'Fast Car' three times in an hour for some reason the other day, and I just had to write this down. If it were 2002 this story would be a songfic, but it's not 2002, so I wasn't going to put anyone through that. Thanks for making it to the end of this, anyway, if you did.
> 
> Luke's car is a less souped-up version of the one in 'Corvette Summer' that Kenny almost goes crazy trying to get back.
> 
> I dunno. Sorry this wasn't an update to anything I've already started.


End file.
